People in the News: Celebrities

Tuesday

Jul 3, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 3, 2012 at 12:19 PM

CNN newsman and talk-show host Anderson Cooper came out yesterday after keeping his sexuality private for years. "The fact is, I'm gay - always have been, always will be," the Anderson host wrote in email that he allowed friend Andrew Sullivan to publish on the Daily Beast website. "And I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud." Sullivan wrote that he had asked Cooper, 45, to comment on an Entertainment Weekly story focusing on how gays in public life come out in a more restrained way than they used to. When he responded by confirming his sexuality, Cooper gave Sullivan permission to print the answer. Cooper also wrote that he had tried to maintain some privacy in his life despite a high-profile job (and lineage, with heiress Gloria Vanderbilt as his mother). And, "Since I started as a reporter in war zones 20 years ago, I've often found myself in some very dangerous places," he said, referring not only to battlefields but also to nations where homosexuality is either banned or scorned. "For my safety and the safety of those I work with, I try to blend in as much as possible." Recent events changed his mind, he said: He didn't want to give the impression he was hiding, and he wanted to stand up against bullying.

‘360’ host does a 180

CNN newsman and talk-show host Anderson Cooper came out yesterday after keeping his sexuality private for years. “ The fact is, I’m gay — always have been, always will be,” the Anderson host wrote in email that he allowed friend Andrew Sullivan to publish on the Daily Beast website. “And I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud.” Sullivan wrote that he had asked Cooper, 45, to comment on an Entertainment Weekly story focusing on how gays in public life come out in a more restrained way than they used to. When he responded by confirming his sexuality, Cooper gave Sullivan permission to print the answer. Cooper also wrote that he had tried to maintain some privacy in his life despite a high-profile job (and lineage, with heiress Gloria Vanderbilt as his mother). And, “Since I started as a reporter in war zones 20 years ago, I’ve often found myself in some very dangerous places,” he said, referring not only to battlefields but also to nations where homosexuality is either banned or scorned. “For my safety and the safety of those I work with, I try to blend in as much as possible.” Recent events changed his mind, he said: He didn’t want to give the impression he was hiding, and he wanted to stand up against bullying.

Baldwin shuts down but not up

After marrying yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas on Saturday, actor Alec Baldwin divorced himself — again — from Twitter. An ardent user of the social-networking site, he sent a final tweet yesterday — “It’s been fun” — and reportedly deleted his account. (His wife has changed hers to @hilariabaldwin.) Baldwin deleted his Twitter account once before: during a spat last year with American Airlines. Meanwhile, in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, the actor says of TMZ.com founder Harvey Levin, who posted the voice-mail exchange he had with his daughter (calling her a “thoughtless little pig”) in 2007: “I wanted to stick a knife in him and gut him and kill him, and I wanted him to die breathing his last breath looking into my eyes.”

Holmes in eye of media storm

Among the latest morsels on the Katie Holmes- Tom Cruise breakup: The Church of Scientology denied a TMZ.com report that it has a team watching her. (She has allegedly moved to a different New York apartment with Suri, her daughter with Cruise.) Nobody reported seeing mysterious vehicles in the area as Holmes kept her scheduled appearance yesterday on the reality show Project Runway: All Stars. Holmes does have a new security team, however: She fired her previous protectors because they were too close to Cruise, TMZ said. Her father, Toledo lawyer Martin Holmes, might have had a hand in the firings, one website said. He also helped with her divorce filing, but the decision to split was all hers, a source told Us Weekly. Holmes was convinced that Cruise would send Suri to a Scientology group called Sea Organization that some folks compare to a boot camp, TMZ said. Fox411.com noted that each of his wives (Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman and Holmes) had turned 33, a significant number in Scientology, when their marriages to Cruise derailed.